the last few months prt 1.

What Happened here during the last few months!

During the last few months we had a number of things happening, donations received, and visitors to be welcomed!!!

We received some incredible donations;

Bhante, who was working with great pain on his old PC (really pain because of the problems with his arms), was supplied with a new laptop by “Big John” and Claudette Velenturf.

Mr. Peter Sandkuyl donated a beamer so we will be able to start our program concerning the information about inbreed or marriage in the family and the genetic dangers connected with this, we hope to start this program in may this year and have selected 17 villages to be visited.
Also we will use the laptop and beamer for other educational programs. We will keep you informed about this.

Mr. Jaap Plugge donated SRS. 45.000 for our program to supply eyeglasses for children who urgently need them.

The family Cle and Monica van Beurden and their daughters visited Sri Lanka and we where able to meet them shortly in Hikkaduwa. They donated €50. = on the spot for buying 10 pare of shoes for the children who needed them to go to school. They promised a donation for the Dodanduwa family project and the daughters promised to donate their salary of one day work in the restaurant. Further more Cle promised to try and collect some laptops from the company he works for so we could donate them to schools and / or use them for our educational projects. It did not stay with a prommis we received already one laptop and are using that one now connected with the printer so we can print texts more easely. This laptop is mainly used by the Rev. Ariyadhamma for writing the necessary Singhalese text and has already been of great service because he writes on them the texts for the meetings, makes posters etc. on the moment for the construction of the Tsunami Memorial Monument to be constructed here on our Temple land in corporation with an initiative of ms. Jacky van Oostveen from the Netherlands.

The PC who we used before is donated to the Pushparama Pirivena (Seminary for young monks) in Metiyagoda.

We would like to thank each and every one of them for their donation.

We had another visitor: Mr. Arturo Zoller, an Artist from the Netherlands and true his mediation we received an anonymous donation of SRS.200.000 for the operation of a girl who is suffering of Oscleriosis. This girl can be saved now of a future as an invalid. (Her future would be very limited because if she did not undergo the operation she would not have a long time to live!!!!).

We thank the Anonymous donator (we only know it’s a lady from Amsterdam) for here great act of mercy and kindness!!!!! This all is the true spirit of giving:
Personally I would like to thank all of you: You make me happy, humble and proud!!!!
Like the German family who donated last year money which made it possible to feed 12 underfed children during 6 ½ months!!!!!! THANK YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Unfortunately we had to stop this program because the funds run out)
When our friends from Holland (volunteers for the Dodanduwa project) arrived Nicole brought among others a Table Tennis set for Ariyadhamma and they tried it out immediately.
Playing “ping-pong”. Where is that ball? J

We had the program in Dodanduwa where we could renovate and paint the house of a very poor family. There where 4 volunteers (Ardje, Nicole, Maud and Thijs) who worked very hard on this project. Even though it went not as smooth as we hoped and it was sometimes a quite frustrating experience: the work was done. The project is ongoing: we could not finish the whole program because of a lack of funds, but we hope to be able to finish the rest soon.
tattoo time after hard work.
On the 11th of February we celebrated Bhante’s birthday together with the volunteers, Bhante, his pupils and Anura (our three-wheel driver) and his little son. We went on a boat trip on the Maduganga, we visited an island Temple, the cinnamon island and had a nice lunch at a local restaurant on the river.

Our dear friend Ms. Dominique Rousseau from the French “Ayubowan” Foundation visited us and was just in time to participate in the following event:

On the 21st of February our dear friend Mrs. Joy Butler Markham of the Manacare Foundation organized a surprise Birthday Party for Bhante, all our “expats” friends and the workers of the Manacare Centre in Telwatta where present and Bhante received some nice presents. Joy organized the party on the 21st because she was out of the country to visit here daughter Petra in Hong Kong. Petra got here 3rd child, and this time here wish for a girl was fore filled and the new baby was named Isabella, congratulations to Joy, Petra, her husband and the other children! We wish the newborn “Ayyu, Vanno, Sukham Balam!”- Long live, Good Health, Beauty and Happiness!

Later Bhante went to Wellawaya to participate in an almsgiving on an invitation by one of his old pupils who is now the school principle in Weherajaya near Wellawaya. People who know Bhante will also know that this is quit a thing for him; 1st of all it’s a trip of 7 hours to go there by three-wheeler, secondly we all know that normally Bhante does not like very much to go to this official almsgivings because it “takes him to much time” which he prefers to spent working or meditating. This time he went there because his old pupil invited him as a guest of honour and as an exception he accepted this invitation specially to be able to see this pupil again after so many years.

The whole trip took him 3 days, and he came back quite sick because on the way there they made a stop in Matara to take breakfast and Bhante got food poison (possibly Salmonella).
This took him nearly 3 weeks to recover. After the first 10 days with high fever and all the other symptoms (during which time he had to continue working), he was getting on again, but suffered from a total lack of energy. Fortunately he’s recovered well again.

Mr. Jaap Plugge and his friend Mr. Gilles Heystek visited us last week and Gilles gave Bhante a bottle of medicine (all kind of poisons combined), which is working very well and Bhante’s energy is returning quickly. Thanks a lot Gilles!!!!!!!! His diagnosis of Pfeifer was confirmed by the doctor who checked Bhante lately.

Ms. Jacky van Oostveen has been here a few weeks working very hard on here Tsunami Monument project and here Tsunami Photo Museum. We tried to help here as much as possible; we arranged for here to be able to work in the Library, helped to hold different meetings, specially the Rev. Ariyadhamma has been working a lot with here to make the Singhalese text of handbills, posters, info sheets etc. etc.

In the mean time Bhante went up and down again to Wellawaya in one day (this time by car), because there had to be some things discussed about two boys who would like to be ordained in near future as his pupils.

Then there is more great news!!!!

Finally we have found a very nice person to come and help out in Temple!!!

Dumith is a young man of 26 years who came last week to work in Temple. He turned out to be not only a very nice and quite young man, but also a hard worker.

Bhante told him several times to take some rest during the afternoon heat but he likes to continue his work and after his evening bath he likes to come and learn more English from Bhante and Ariyadhamma Thero.

We hope and trust that he will develop to be a valuable member of our team. He’s learning to cook, receive visitors etc. etc. and he can manage the things with the Ven. Puññasara Thera also quite well up till now (and that means something!!!).

So: Welcome Dumith!!!!! We are Happy to have you on board!!!!
There is also some sad news; the very brave, lovely and by many, and specially by us, dearly beloved little cat Boefie died last week, most probably after being poisoned. We are missing him daily! May he have a better rebirth!

We are making a pond, later more about that, but Alexander brought us a wheelchair and a number of chruches; they where just in time becous the Rev. Ariyadhamma wounded his feet badly and had to be operated. Afther that he is using one pair of the chruches so we say: Thank you Sander! Just in time :-)